


washed away

by greenforsnow



Series: Trek Bingo 2020 [3]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Light Pining, Mind Manipulation, Pre-Relationship, Sehlats (Star Trek), Trauma, Vague descriptions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenforsnow/pseuds/greenforsnow
Summary: Trip had felt something was off from the moment he stepped on the alien ship.Trip gets tortured by hostile aliens. T'Pol helps him recover.
Relationships: T'Pol/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Series: Trek Bingo 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904833
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020





	washed away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the free square of my Trek Bingo 2020. Which I chose to fill with "Torture" because... I needed some more trauma in this bingo apparently.
> 
> Thank you to [delgaserasca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delgaserasca/pseuds/delgaserasca) for the beta!

Trip had felt something was off from the moment he stepped on the alien ship. The Qurkox had initially been cold and had appeared unwilling to trade. The Enterprise had been ready to move on when a last minute comm announced that they had changed their mind. He’d had the prickling sensation on the back of his neck that he was being watched, even when he was alone in their engine room. He hadn’t said anything to the captain; they needed the dilithium badly, and he wasn’t going to sabotage that based on an uneasy feeling in his gut. Now he was in the belly of the engine, his legs hanging out as he rewired the reactor that had been giving the Qurokox problems. He wished that Malcom was there. Just knowing he had someone watching his back would ease the twisting eels nestling in his stomach. He was alone though. So when he slid out of the jefferies tubehe made sure to keep his back to the wall as he knelt to flick the switches and see if power returned. The engine grumbled into life but the guard watching him didn’t react. 

“Alright,” Trip said, clapping his hands together. “I think we’re just about done here.” 

The guard barely looked at him, and held up an arm, gesturing towards the door.

“Isn’t the transporter that way?” Trip asked. He made a move to step down the hallway the other way, but another guard stepped out from behind a corner. Trip’s hand reached towards his belt instinctively, but as his fingers wrapped around the comforting metal of his phaser, he was struck on the head.

When he came to, he first became aware of the feeling of his bare skin against cold metal. The light was bright enough to hurt his eyes, but he forced them open. He was in a laboratory of some kind. There was a tank in front of him with a creature that looked like an albino octopus. There were containers of brightly colored liquids on tables that blurred into a strange rainbow of colors as Trip tried to focus his eyes. His arms felt heavy and sluggish as he tried to move them. He managed to sit up and scanned the room for his clothes, his communicator, or anything that would give him a clue about what was going on. He didn’t find much. It was sparse and sterile. Another table had a tight coil of wires, but that didn’t give him much of a clue about what the hell was going on. He stumbled off the table towards the door. He pressed the buttons on the wall, but the door remained stubbornly shut. He pressed his fingers into the crease of the door and tried to pry it open: it It was sealed tight. He knocked over a table, and was trying to use the leg to pry open the door when it swished open. Trip fell into the opening,against the legs of a tall Qurkox

“Ah, you’re awake.” 

“What the hell is going on here?” Trip growled. His voice was rough and his throat was parched. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. 

The Qurkox gave him a withering look and grabbed him by the shoulder; Trip tried to twist out of his grasp, but the alien was stronger than he was expecting. He picked up a device from the table and casually pressed it against Trip’s bare thigh. He felt a pinch and, all of a sudden, his muscles felt weak. He stumbled as his legs collapsed under him, but the Qurkox was quick to pick him up and fling him back onto the table. Trip’s back hit the metal hard, pressing the air out of his lungs. He tried to swing his arm out at the alien who was standing over him, but his limbs felt heavy; he managed to lift his arm only a few inches before it landed heavily back on the table. Trip felt nauseated. He was barely in control of his body, but he knew he needed to get the hell out of here in any way he could. All he could do was try to roll his body off the table. 

The Qurkox let out a cold laugh and pressed something cold against Trip’s temples.

Trip wasn’t sure how long it lasted. It felt like something was inside him, inside his mind, his emotions and thoughts jumping from one thing to the next. Fear flooded him, then was quickly replaced by giddy laughter. He felt pain in parts of his body he didn’t know existed. And then extreme heat. Intense hunger replaced by a rush of glee. On and on until he passed out.

He woke up back on Enterprise.

Trip didn’t like the medbay. He didn’t like the sterile smell or the fragile stillness. Now, it also reminded him of the bright white laboratory back on the Qurkox ship. Still, he let Phlox run his tests before begging him to let him go back to his quarters.

Trip spent an hour in the shower. It felt wasteful and indulgent, but it quieted the screaming in his head; made him feel like maybe he could wash away the icy and foreign feeling of the Qurkox inside of his head. He gave up when his fingers wrinkled and nothing inside his mind had changed. Phlox had said he was fine, no lingering effects, but he’d given him a concerned stare that Trip still felt. He ran his hands through his damp hair and tossed a robe on. His eyes hesitated on his reflection. “You’re fine,” he said quietly. “Fine,” he repeated with a stern look at himself before walking out of his bathroom.

He wasn’t entirely surprised when he saw T’Pol standing in his quarters. He quickly tightened his robe, wishing it were a few inches longer. T’Pol didn’t react beyond a quick twitch of her eyebrow. She stood stiff and formal with her hands clasped behind her back. 

“Phlox sending you on housecalls now?” he asked.

“Dr. Phlox informed me that you had returned to your quarters, but he did not send me anywhere.” Her eyes were carefully focused on his face, though searching for what, Trip wasn’t sure. 

Trip ran a hand through his hair. His hand shook slightly, and he hoped T’Pol didn’t notice. Her eyes snapped directly to the tremor, and Trip sighed. Of course; she noticed everything.

“Commander,” she said. Her voice was measured and soft in a way that made Trip ache. 

Trip looked around the room, desperate for something to do— a task. His eyes fell on a pile of tools and equipment stacked on his desk. He’d salvaged it a few months back from a wreckage they found in the swamps of Sillon 114. He kept meaning to sort through it, but he never had the time. He settled down in front of the twisted pile of scraps while T’Pol stayed standing by the door. Her eyes didn’t leave him, but she stayed quiet. Trip didn’t want to talk about it, so that was fine by him. He picked up a few loose pieces of piping and twirled them between his fingers, enjoying the way the rough metal felt against his skin — familiar and safe. T’Pol was good at making him feel uncomfortable in so many ways. Right now he felt like the inside of his brain was itching, so he was surprised that her steadfast silence was getting to him. She probably thought that if she didn’t say anything he would talk about what had happened on the Qurkox ship. He rolled his eyes. Talking about it wouldn’t help either of them.

“You know, when I was little, I used to make these crazy booby traps in my room. I’d go to the recycling yard and bring back buckets of old parts like this. Make it so when the door opened it knocked over a ball bearing which would roll down some tubing until it hit a block or something. Then it sounded a bell or made a message pop up on the computer. Got more and more complex as I got older. Some of them took up most of the room.”

T’Pol’s brows came together. “Was property theft common where you grew up?”

Trip chuckled in response. Although, even to him, it sounded hollow. “No, just nosey younger sisters.”

Trip twisted open the pipe in his hands and was met with a sharp jolt of pain.

He dropped the pipe. It fell easily from his fingers and clattered against the edge of his table before falling to the floor. He was vaguely aware of the freezing sensation on his skin as he watched a viscous fluid ooze from the pipe into his carpet. 

“Well, that’s going to be a bitch to clean up,” he said, and knelt on the ground by spill. His hands felt numb and clumsy as he scrubbed at the carpet; he knew the material was rough and scratching his fingers, but the sensation didn’t quite connect. The stain on the floor grew larger. He looked at his hands, doused in the liquid, dirty and tainted. He remembered the feeling of his own thoughts being twisted and covered by something that was not of his own making. He rubbed his hands harder against his robe. 

T’Pol raised an eyebrow at him. “I do not think that is an effective method of trying to clean your hands.”

Trip shook his head and rubbed his hands on the table again. “It’s gotta get clean. It’s gotta come out. Gotta go back to normal. Come on.”

T’Pol’s eyes were wide as she approached, walking slowly, like he was some goddamn wild animal she was trying not to frighten. Trip turned away; tried to ground himself in the room. The ends of his hair felt sharp against his forehead. His hands were hot now. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck and rolled down his spine. No. He swallowed, but his tongue felt big and dry in his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. Tried to count the tiles on the ceiling, but they were blurring around the edges. God, it was hot in here. He started to kneel, crawl towards the walls so he could change the environmental controls, and was surprised to find T’Pol kneeling in front of him instead. He blinked trying to bring her into focus. 

She moved slowly, or maybe that was just in his mind too. Either way her hands moved towards his face deliberately, brushed aside his hair. The coolness of her hands against his forehead felt like a goddamn salvation. 

His hands were still covered with the sticky substance. They were shaking, collecting lint from his robe as he rubbed them against the fabric. 

He looked up at T’Pol who met his gaze with steady patience. Trip looked away; tried to laugh. 

“You don’t gotta stay. I’m nothing but a mess of human emotions right now. Can’t be pleasant for you.” He looked away before he could see any reaction in her gaze and was surprised by her hands grasping his arms, easily pulling him to his feet. 

“You are having a physiological response to significant mental trauma,” T’Pol said simply as she half carried him to the fresher. Trip’s feet felt heavy and he stumbled, but she was fast to catch him.

The air was cooler in here, the light gentler. T’Pol’s strong hands were still firm on his arms, and she led him over to the sink. She turned on the water and moved behind him. Her whole body was pressed into his, and Trip choked back a sob at the comfort of that contact. Her hands slipped around his waist, barely touching him until she pulled his wrists under the faucet. 

He let himself slump against the solid form of her body. If he were a little more awake, if there was a bit more quiet in his mind, he might’ve been concerned about how easy this felt - how right it felt for T’Pol to be here, putting him back together. It should have worried him, how natural it felt to depend on her, but for now, he was content to be encircled by her strength, to take the comfort and affection she offered with open palms. 

She squeezed an oily soap into his hands. It wasn’t ‘Fleet issued - smelled less sterile, and more like the candles T’Pol burned in her quarters. It felt cooling against his burning skin, and he was glad to have a sensation to focus on, to keep him here in this room with her. 

He felt something in T’Pol tense against him, but when she spoke her voice was steady and calm. “Here,” she said, and pressed her hands against his. Trip felt his breath catch at the contact, or maybe it was T’Pol’s echoing through him. Her fingers slipped, cool and gentle, between his own. Trip felt his knees give slightly, but T’Pol kept him steady braced between her and the counter. Her thumbs began to work circles around his palms, pressed just right against bundles of nerves that made him relax against her more, washing the burning liquid away with each deliberate pass. Trip felt himself coming back as she slid her grip up each finger. It was easier for his mind to stay here, easier for him to take deep breaths, with the ease of his panic and surge of guilt rushed out of him. 

“‘M sorry,” he said. He didn’t look up at the mirror to see T’Pol’s reflection, though he knew it was right there. Her head so close to his own, her chin pressed against his shoulder so her breath ghosted against his cheekbone. 

“You have no need to apologize,” T’Pol said simply. 

“I don’t want you to see me as some kind of faulty engine you gotta keep coming ‘round to fix,” he said.

“That is hardly an apt comparison.”

The burning liquid had come off, and run down the drain, but T’Pol continued to work the water and soap into his skin. It was almost like she was… exploring him, her fingers mapping out the shape of his own, slowing as they moved over calluses, tracing the white lines of old scars. Trip shivered, the intimacy suddenly bright and clear and overwhelming. He swallowed.

“Still, don’t like you having to clean up my emotional human messes.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. If she were okay with it, Trip had the sinking suspicion he’d be okay with her helping him with his emotional messes for the rest of his life. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to say that.

“I don’t consider this an emotional human mess. The liquid spilled on your hands certainly was a mess, but not an emotional one.”

Trip rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to retort, but T’Pol interrupted him. “A joke, Commander. I have noticed you appreciate the use of humor to dispel unwanted tension.” 

Trip smiled and shook his head. He met her eyes in the mirror and laughed at the look of indulgent amusement there. “Do you ever get tired of me? Us, I mean. Humans. Having to deal with all of us emoting all around you all the damn time?”

T’Pol paused, considering the question it seemed, watching her hands on Trip’s. 

“It is curious. I find it challenging when Ensign Kant insists on asking to help her compose _aloof but still flirty_ responses to Ensign Snyder’s comms.”

Trip chucked. “Her words?”

“Yes. I find it challenging when people insist on trying to provoke emotion in me. Or try to convince me that human culture is superior.”

Trip felt a twist in his gutat that. It was something he was working on, but he was guilty of that.

“I sometimes still find human behavior inexplicable and, yes, at times challenging. But my work here is gratifying. And as for you, Commander, I find you to be an agreeable companion. For a human.”

Trip shook his head and bit his lip. “I’m not inexplicable and challenging?”

“I did not say that,” she said. “I still do not understand why you cried while watching the third installment of _Spaceship Freedomfire_.” 

“It was a single tear! Five at most,” Trip said.

“I believe there are others who will corroborate my version of events.”

Trip shrugged in defeat.

“At times,” T’Pol said, “you are one of the most challenging humans I interact with aboard this vessel. However, I find your company stimulating, and I believe I’m beginning to understand your behavior.”

“Is that so?” Trip bit down on his grin, but it was unavoidable. He was pretty sure that was a platinum-grade compliment coming from the Vulcan. 

“On Vulcan, there is a series of stories told to children about a young sehlat named Nuh’Yeht who did nothing in half-measures. He often got into trouble as a result. He allowed his curiosity to overpower him. He allowed his loyalty to drive him to actions that were foolish. He was a good sehlat, but his actions often seemed illogical to those around him.” T’Pol stopped the movement of her hands as she spoke, but didn’t remove them. Each point of contact felt illuminated. 

“Doesn’t sound like too good of a Vulcan,” Trip said. 

“Nuh’Yeht was a sehlat not a Vulcan,” T’Pol corrected.

“Uh, right and a sehlat is a…” 

“The closest equivalent on Earth would be a bear.”

Trip laughed. “A bear? And you think I’m like… this bear?”

T’Pol tilted her head in consideration. “In some ways. Recalling the Nuh’Yeht stories has helped me to gain a better understanding of you. Nuh’Yeht was not weak, nor unintelligent or even impulsive. In fact, he had many admirable qualities, but often made decisions that seemed illogical, if you did not understand who he was in essence.”

“Huh,” Trip said. “So you think you know who I am… in essence.”

“I believe I am learning,” T’Pol said softly, so the words brushed against his throat. 

Trip’s stomach flipped. The sincerity of the moment brought him dangerously close to saying something that would scare T’Pol off. Again. He searched for something to break the moment. 

“You, uh, know on Earth they make stuffed bears— call ‘em teddy bears— and people sleep with them at night.”

T’Pol dropped his hands and took a step back, and Trip immediately missed the contact. “I do not see how that is relevant.”

Trip smirked. “Just sayin’, you think I’m like this bear creature…”

“I see you are feeling better now, Commander.”

Trip laughed and cleared his throat. “Alright, alright. Yes, I am.”

He looked at her carefully before saying, “Thank you.” He hoped she understood the weight of those words. When he reached out and squeezed her hand he felt his stomach flip again. T’Pol’s eyes widened, and she took a step back, her jaw clenched against something unspoken. She nodded and walked briskly towards the door. Trip sighed and tried to push back the longing that engulfed him as he watched her retreating form. 


End file.
